Ballet companies count on the income from parents bringing the kids to Nutcracker; same with the Met Opera's English-language children's versions of classics; many museums have shows timed for school vacation. And, at last, the younger set can get vaccinated. Fingers are crossed. - The New York Times
Performance spaces and cinemas, bars and restaurants, and other non-essential businesses are closed until mid-January. This and a similar lockdown in Denmark are, so far, the strictest measures in Europe since the Omicron variant of the coronavirus arrived. - Variety
It’s clear that the rise of e-sports has come at the expense of traditional youth sports, with implications for their future and for the way children grow up. Lack of young players in the pipeline could be a problem for professional sports. - The New York Times
Especially in New York, where last-minute omicron-variant cancellations led to a very strange night. "The rigid format—with every sketch introduced by one of the performers reading a hastily written lead-in—yielded a disconcerting, even apocalyptic, atmosphere." - The Atlantic
A now-30-year-old tech executive has texts and other evidence from the alleged assault in 2010, by the then-35-year-old The Sex and the City star. (The actor was dropped by his talent agency on Friday.) - The Daily Beast
As summer arrives, COVID is spreading again in New South Wales; experts expect 25,000 new cases per day in the state by late January. Administrators are looking nervously at London and New York, where performances or even runs get cancelled when company members get infected. - The Guardian
Kevin Scally, chief relationship officer at Charity Navigator, the world’s largest nonprofit evaluator, says MrBeast is part of an encouraging trend of social media influencers using their power to fight homelessness or raising COVID-19 relief funds. - Toronto Star
"Nathan Pearce from theatre ticket agency Seatplan said: 'As soon as Omicron was reported as a serious threat we saw a 30% drop in sales almost overnight. And when Boris made his announcement we saw another 40% drop.'" - BBC
While the specifics differ (as do outcomes, somewhat), the common thread seems to be that these towns built gathering places — community centers or gardens, cafes, public squares with seating and playgrounds. And they've made a real difference. - Fast Company
M+ seemed inevitable, so right. But if you looked closely enough, divisions between the city and its various cultural saviours were starting to emerge. - Apollo
Why are they still here? "Hollywood as a whole called on the HFPA to exit stage left, take a beat and come back stronger (and more diverse, more legitimate) in 2023. But, alas, Monday is happening." - Washington Post
Teachers in the arts "have a unique ability to affect students' agency, the sense of being able to take what is a mess or chaos and make order out of it ... even if one is feeling lost in oneself or in the context of one's daily circumstances." - KQED
"A dead mall, while eerie and odd, is strangely difficult to interpret. Tempting to see it as an Ozymandias-like portent of the collapse of capitalism, but it's surely not, or not quite. … How are these castles to consumerism crumbling while the system they represented lives on?" - Slate
Scientists have known for many years that Vikings — a name given to the Norse by the English they raided — built a village at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the turn of the millennium. But a study published in Nature is the first to pinpoint the date of the Norse occupation. - NBC News
